TechEvangelists

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January 30, 2006

39 Megapixel Digital SLR Camera

Try this on for size. Hasselblad, a Swedish company, has announced the world's first 39 megapixel SLR camera. The H2D-39 includes a range of extended digital features including digital APO Correction technology and Instant Approval Architecture. It offers Hasselblad's own HB RGB color profile, and a new 3FR RAW file format. For all those times you needed a image the size of a building. Yours for the price of only $29,995.

Read more in the press release.

Posted by toddc at 03:55 PM | Comments (1)

January 27, 2006

newstendo

As reported by just about everybody, Nintendo has announced a new slimmer version of their popular DS handheld gaming system. The system is supposed to be two-thirds the size of the original.

I personally think the DS has been the best gaming platform released in the last couple of years, and eagerly await the new Tetris DS (along with the Revolution, which should be interesting).

Posted by Martin at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2006

Flickr Fun

Flickr is the best, if not the only, social photo hosting service around. These days I post to Flickr way more than my own blog, even. I *heart* Flickr, in case you didn't notice. Anyway, here are a couple of fun Flickr-y links:

fastr - a flickr game

Enter your name and try to guess the Flickr tag! Compete against other Flickr geeks!

flickr logo maker (see also: Google logo maker)

Posted by colsen at 04:51 PM | Comments (1)

January 24, 2006

...and the virtual becomes real!

OGLE, is a piece of software that grabs 3D information being displayed on your computer, and outputs it in a way that can be read by other 3D programs. This has an incredibly huge amount of applications, but the developers (a non-profit called Eyebeam OpenLab) have already hit on one of my favorites--turning virtual reality into reality. They used a Dimension 3D printer to create a little model of a world of warcraft character. Just thinking about how many ways this is cool makes my head swim. I'll bet someone ambitious could even make a pretty penny just churning out personalized models for 3D gamers.

The official announcement (about OGLE) was posted on Eyebeam's blog.

[via Boing Boing]

Posted by Martin at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2006

Video Game Writers

Ever wonder who writes the stories (dialogue) in your favorite video games? I hadn't until I read this article over at the Hollywood Reporter on video game writers, and the future of video game writing. If you, like me, find the gaming industry fascinating, it's worth a read.

Posted by Martin at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2006

Leveraging Gee-whiz

Jeffrey Zeldman has weighed in on the latest hype surrounding the so-called "Web 2.0" phenomenon. His reply? Web 3.0.

Zeldman is right to grouse. His annoying conference-goer encounter mirrors the agencies and content publishers who suddenly want to "leverage podcasting" or some other improbable combination of buzzwords. Marketing dollars are starting to flow back into the interactive space, and suddenly everyone wants to have a website that utilizes more acronyms then ever before.

Deploying a web presence that strongly depends on its implementation technology is a fallacy. You do not put the cart before the horse, or AJAX before the content. To paraphrase fellow Clockworker Nancy Lyons, you need to build the foundation of a website first—solid content, well-organized information architecture, a compelling design—not some mishmash of "Gee-whiz".

Zeldman is correct in noting that the community-driven, AJAX-enabled social software craze will continue, not unlike a gold rush. There is electronic frontier out there. However, the same problems inherent of packing all your things into a wagon and heading into the wild West are present too in this new domain. The lack of AJAX usability conventions, efficient design processes, and standard development environments invites catastrophe after catastrophe for these web development pioneers. A select few will be able to engineer their ideas properly and before their competitors deliver; most of these developers will fail.

As Zeldman says:

"To you who feel like failures because you spent last year honing your web skills and serving clients, or running a business, or perhaps publishing content, you are special and lovely, so hold that pretty head high, and never let them see the tears."

AJAX and the other buzzwords pouring out of the "Web 2.0" meme represent amazing capabilities. There are already a few sites that get it right (Flickr, anyone?). Web developers that ignore these emerging technologies will eventually be left behind. However, the existence of this new technology does not change the primary focus of the web: access to media. This content is the defining characteristic of the modern web site. Gee-whiz doesn't need to be leveraged; content does. If the technology doesn't improve the access to the content, it has no place on the web site.

Posted by Matt at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2006

Myspace for Businesses

Sometime in the not too distant past, First Avenue redesigned their website. (They claim it was in March of last year, but I think they've been rolling out new features ever since.)

Anyway, I like the new site quite a bit, but there are a couple of nitpicky thing that really bug me about it. The first is that their sub-navigation items (in the form of dropdown menus) don't appear until you get to an "internal" page. The second is that they have rotating news items on their homepage, but there is no way (that I have yet discovered) to see all the news items at once!

One of said news items was a link to First Avenue's myspace profile. This got me thinking about myspace in the business sector. If all kinds of bands are creating successful relationships with their customers using myspace, why shouldn't it work for a music venue? (For that matter, maybe Clockwork should have a myspace account...)

Posted by Martin at 02:27 PM | Comments (1)

January 18, 2006

Human head knife block

In a tour de force mash-up of high design, functionality, and possibly therapy, Irene van Gestel gives the world a knife block shapped like a human head.

via boingboing

Posted by zach at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)

January 17, 2006

Here Comes the Video

Apple is including a built-in iSight camera in their new computers. These days, when Apple thinks its important, it's probably important. I just got an iSight and it does kind of get your wheels turnings in regards to the uses of real-time video chat or webcam-style video. This is in addition to the obviously growing utlization of online video e.g. vlogs and traditional tv-style content. If video conferencing was super-duper easy, we'd all do it. Thus, we will all do it. It's coming. Comb your hair.

Posted by Michael at 12:03 AM | Comments (3)

January 16, 2006

Improve Your Life Using the Internet, Pt. 2

Note: This article is a continuation of Improve Your Life Using the Internet, Pt. 1.

Apparently when I ended the last article with a promise to continue last week, I really meant this week.

Now, on with the tips:

3. Obtain and use web-based e-mail for on-the-go access.

For many net-savvy people, this is a no-brainer. I also know many hardcore geeks that spurn web-based mail technology, and prefer to use the likes of mutt, pine, and the "newer" readers such as Mozilla Thunderbird. My suggestion is not that you abandon your traditional, familiar means of communcation. However, let's say you're in an unfamiliar location, without a laptop, and wish to check your mail? Unless you have a Treo, you can't remotely connect to your computer; sometimes all you have is Internet Explorer in an internet cafe. Enter webmail.

Gmail and Mail2Web are the two web-based e-mail servers I use. Gmail is a wonderful repository for Amazon receipts, random bits of web registrivia, and critical notes to self that need to be accessible on the road. Searching is incredibly efficient and fast—much more so than an IMAP client crawling through thousands of e-mails sitting in a folder. I'd recommend that everyone establish a Gmail account and use it as a remote information repository.

Mail2Web is perfect for those situations where you need information trapped in a traditional mail server but do not have access to a mail client (or your beloved terminal). Enter your e-mail address and your e-mail server's password and you're browsing your e-mail through a web gateway. Granted, you are disclosing sensitive information (your mail password). Mail2Web lets you do this over SSL (which prevents eavesdroppers from sniffing your password by initiating a secure, encrypted session), but you still have to trust Mail2Web. Their privacy policy explicitly states that they do not retain passwords or any password-related information unless you ask them to.

Ready access to e-mail in unfamiliar or remote locations can be a life-saver, especially when you're forced to play by someone else's technology rules.

4. Limit your time online.

Limiting time online is an odd tip coming from a blogger, Flickr-addict, and general geek who spends most of his waking time online. The Internet is vast. You could spend every waking minute reading or downloading something online and there would still be more. New content is being created every day. In order to maintain any productivity whatsoever, you must limit your browsing to focused, specific tasks. This is limiting one's "online time".

Always-on broadband does not mean you should spend your day refreshing Slashdot, or checking your inbox, web stats, etc. These are examples of information addiction. When you come across an interesting web site, bookmark it (see tip #8). Visit Google with a clear idea of what you want to find. Set mini-goals for your time online, and evaluate them when you've finished. It's hard, but all that information won't help you a bit unless you spend time using it.

Finally, just break away. I shouldn't need to say this. The Internet is wonderful, and I love technology—yet, I need to get away from time to time. Living entirely online can sometimes blind you to new and interesting possibilities on the 'net. The Internet is an enabler: use it to improve your life, rather than enslave it!

I will continue this series as soon as I have time. In the meantime—blog on, fellow evangelists!

Posted by Matt at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2006

Hubble, Einstein and You

Edwin Hubble, after whom the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is named, discovered something really important about 100 years ago -- that the universe seems to be expanding. Coincidentally, Albert Einstein was working at roughly the same time on explaining the universal laws of gravitation, something we now call general relativity. Hubble drew a line on a plot he had made and calculated the rate at which the universe was expanding. Einstein came up with an equation that said the universe was most likely either expanding or contracting -- staying the same was virtually impossible. Einstein, though, believed the universe was not expanding nor contracting so he added a term to his equation, now called the cosmological constant. When Einstein learned that the universe was expanding he called his addition of the cosmological constant his greatest blunder.

With me so far? Hubble and Einstein independently "discovered" the same thing at roughly the same time -- the universe is expanding.

The thing is, the expansion is hard to explain. Given what we know of the universe and the Big Bang, the universe should be contracting. Gravity should be winning its tug-of-war with the initial expansion of the Big Bang. There must be some force causing it to expand, what Einstein called the cosmological constant. We don't know what it is but we call it Dark Energy. The name is not meant to be as mysterious as it sounds -- it just means energy we haven't detected yet. It might be one thing or many things, new or known, that we just haven't put our finger on yet.

Now new research has suggested that the cosmological constant may not be constant. Says Phil Plait on the previous hyperlink:

It’s weird enough that the Universe is accelerating, but if that acceleration is itself accelerating, that makes things a whole lot weirder.

This is one tidbit I picked up while attending a recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.

It's amazing the things we can learn about the universe and how we learn it. It's interesting to me to read about the work of people, like Hubble and Einstein, who are trying to figure out the very origin and fate of the universe as a whole.

Posted by Michael at 11:11 AM | Comments (1)

January 13, 2006

HOWTO: Void the Warranty on Your 8GB iPod Nano

DIY/hardware hacking, as they say, "floats our boats." If it floats yours too, motor your boat over to this hack to turn a 4GB Nano into an 8GB Nano. Hardware hacks may be nothing new in net-land, but it's not often they get away with reworking SMDs (Surface Mount Devices) with a bazillion pins, thanks to Chipquick, an easy method for removing SMD components.

Note: images from MultiArcade.com.

Update: The hack-a-day write up and comments are very skeptical of this hack. Unfortunately the comments to this effect represent the internet at its finest. This hack is completely plausible. If I were a designer at Apple, I would build my PCB to automatically detect the configuration of the flash modules. It would be crazy not to, especially with the poplarity of the iPod. As the demand for 2GB and 4GB Nanos and supply of flash modules fluctuate, the only thing that need to be done to adjust your assembly line is the number and kind of flash modules soldered to pads. And what about when Apple chooses to release a 6GB Nano? Well the designer smiles and goes on vacation. Is this hack legit? Maybe we'll find out.

Posted by zach at 10:41 AM | Comments (1)

January 10, 2006

Improve Your Life Using the Internet, Pt. 1

The Internet is a wonderful tool, community, knowledge base, sounding board, diversion, and much more. Broadband Internet provides always-on access to the vast Web and instant communication tools (e-mail, instant messaging). Much of the online world is free and forgiving—one doesn't need to worry too much about exploring.

Despite the openness and exploratory nature of the Internet, it is an unfamiliar and frightening world for some. Others become addicted to a constant flow of information and diversion, an information stream that TV could only approximate before the Internet. The potential for fear and addiction is a major stumbling-block for effective Internet use.

The Internet can be used in a non-threatening way that complements daily life; indeed, the Internet can greatly increase productivity when used properly. There are some simple things you can do to improve your Internet usage:

1. Use Google effectively.
2. Check your e-mail less frequently.
3. Obtain and use web-based e-mail for on-the-go access.
4. Limit your time online.
5. Eliminate repetitive online tasks.
6. Filter the available information.
7. Use the proper tools.
8. Bookmark.
9. Do not abuse IM.
10. Write clear, concise electronic communications.

Read on for a discussion of tips 1 and 2; I'll continue this series this week.

1. Use Google effectively.

Google is an amazing website—a wealth of information is only a few clicks away. This information is just waiting for you to find it—search technology is the only barrier. To use a search engine effectively, you must write good queries. This isn't obvious—if you were interested in golf and typed photography into Google, the results are overwhelming. So much photography! 211 million results; no person could ever go through that many.

Now, Google selected popular and respected websites to occupy the top slots, but perhaps you were interested in something more specific. The key to a good search query is to find the unique key words that relate to what you want to find. This is sometimes a chicken-and-egg scenario, but to continue with our photography example—let's try macro photography. Only 4.25 million results, two orders of magnitude less than our initial, naive query.

We've seen how to dramatically improve the relevance of your search results by introducing additional search terms related to what you're trying to find. These tips barely scratch the surface: Google can look up movie times, music albums, UPS / FedEx shipments, ISBNs, perform calculations, search news, show maps and satellite imagery, and find images.

Using Google in an effective manner will greatly reduce the time you spend wading through search results and following dead-end link trails. An hour or so spent learning Google will save countless hours when you need to find information quickly. Google's broad reach of information can provide insight into just about any aspect of your life—learn a new hobby, find a movie showing near you, or check the satellite imagery to determine if your hotel is really near the beach. Just Google it!

For more information, check out the following Google resources:

• Basic Search
• Advanced Search
• Search Features
• Even More Google Tools

Other resources include the Google Guide and O'Reilly's Google Hacks book.

2. Check your e-mail less frequently.

E-mail is a wonderful communications tool. It is a nearly instant method of delivering information to someone electronically and can greatly increase your quality of life. However, just because you can check your e-mail every second doesn't mean that you should, and here's why:

E-mail, though instant, is not instantly actionable. People leave their desks during the day, attend meetings, answer telephone calls, and write other e-mails. It is simply not possible to answer incoming e-mails instantly. Nevertheless, constantly checking e-mail can become a habit, a means of distracting one's self from other tasks. This is not what e-mail is for.

In order to use e-mail properly, you need to determine the minimum unit of time it takes for you to accomplish something. How many minutes do you need before you can accomplish something that requires concentration? This varies by person and profession; the only way to discover this magic number is to track your time.

I recommend that you multiply this number by 1.5 and use that as your e-mail check interval. The extra time is added so that you may actually transition between tasks gracefully, and allow for the inevitable coffee breaks, etc. Checking e-mail any quicker can destroy your productivity, as new, distracting information can come in that is complex enough to destroy the careful thoughts you spent time forming. Remember: if it is very time-critical, someone will contact you through a more immediate means. E-mail is not designed for instant communication, only instant delivery of information.

Using e-mail carefully will decrease the amount of time spent reading, responding to, and getting distracted by e-mail. Grouping your time into uninterrupted chunks that work for you will help improve your productivity—you can even address incoming e-mail in one such block.

There are many more articles available on why you should reduce your e-mail checking frequency:

• Efficient E-mail
• Spend Less Time on E-mail and Get More Done
• Five Fast E-mail Productivity Tips

Posted by Matt at 12:03 PM | Comments (2)

January 08, 2006

PHP Easter Egg: Exposing the machinery of the Web

An easter egg is a "hidden message or feature in an object such as a movie, book, CD, DVD, or computer program." (Wikipedia) Easter eggs are the ultimate inside joke—developers like to have fun, and sometimes insert these geeky in-jokes as part of a larger project. For example, Microsoft software engineers hid a flight simulator in Microsoft Excel 97, a clone of Spy Hunter in Excel 2000, and a version of pinball in Microsoft Word 97. An integrated chip design even includes the outline of a popular video game character, Sonic the Hedgehog. The software used to run the web is no different; it too was created by fun-loving developers, and there are occasional easter eggs.

PHP is a server-side technology used to provide a rich web experience. If you provide a special URL to a web site that runs PHP, you can make it display an image instead of the usual web page. These "magic images" were included into PHP by its developers; they are present in every standard PHP install. Most any site that uses PHP will display these magic images if you ask properly. For example, PHP's own web site can be made to show a dog photo inside its normal logo.

Try it yourself

If you add ?= and a special code to any web address, you can test if the site is using PHP. Try out some example links (check 'em out while they work):

• PHP Logo (on php.net): http://www.php.net/?=PHPE9568F34-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
• Dog Logo (on php.net): http://www.php.net/?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
• Dog Logo (on hardened-php.net): http://www.hardened-php.net/?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
• Dog Logo (on truste.org): https://www.truste.org/?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
• Zend logo (on php.net): http://www.php.net/?=PHPE9568F35-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
• PHP Credits (on php.net): http://www.php.net/?=PHPB8B5F2A0-3C92-11d3-A3A9-4C7B08C10000

Update: It appears that digg has disabled this easter egg. I've changed the links above to point at php.net.

Read on for the technical details, including the location of these images within the PHP source tree.

(Via Digg)

Examining the Source Code

A quick search through PHP's own source code reveals several of these images embedded within the code. The GUIDs are defined in the ext/standard/info.h header file:

53 #define PHP_LOGO_GUID "PHPE9568F34-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42"
54 #define PHP_EGG_LOGO_GUID "PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42"
55 #define ZEND_LOGO_GUID "PHPE9568F35-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42"
56 #define PHP_CREDITS_GUID "PHPB8B5F2A0-3C92-11d3-A3A9-4C7B08C10000"


The images themselves are stored as binary data in the main/logos.h header file. Most of the images included within PHP are perfectly reasonable; the PHP logo, Zend logo, and credits are all used by PHP to generate the output of the phpinfo( ) function. The PHP_EGG_LOGO_GUID is included (as the name indicates) as an easter egg. Interestingly, the main PHP logo switches to the easter egg logo (with the dog) on April 1st—clearly, an inside joke.

Security Concerns

Easter eggs are fun, but there's a down side: sometimes these hidden features introduce exploitable defects into software or leak vital system information. In this particular case, it appears that the dog in the easter egg is related to the PHP version number. One could easily write a web scanner to check if a site is running PHP and discover its version through a single HTTP request.

Fortunately, this easter egg is quite easy to disable. You can alter your php.ini file to include the following line:

expose_php = 0


For More Information

A large collection of easter eggs is available at The Easter Egg Archive and Egg Heaven.

Posted by Matt at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)

January 06, 2006

Which Linux Distribution are YOU?

zegenie studios has created a quiz to determine which Linux distribution suits you best. zegenie is a Norway-based open-source software and support company. The quiz is dead simple, with precise explanations of confusing questions. As a daily Linux user who regularly recompiles kernels, develops, etc. I didn't feel silly answering the questions.

From a user interface perspective, the wizard is worth going through because it is so darned cute. The icons and questions are quite clean, there is a persistent progress bar at the top of the survey's window—in short, a well-executed web application.

Take the quiz and see what Linux distribution suits you; the available choices include live CDs, so you can download, burn, and try Linux without changing anything on your computer. I keep a live CD [knoppix] in my car at all times, since I never know when I'll be called upon to rescue someone's misbehaving windows PC.

In case you're wondering, both Ubuntu Linux and Debian are my best distro choices; I currently run Ubuntu on all my machines (after migrating from Debian). The quiz doesn't lie!

(Via Lifehacker. If you don't read it, you should.)

Posted by Matt at 09:40 AM | Comments (1)

January 05, 2006

CoverFlow

Enlarge

Remember browsing for music by actually looking at the cover art instead of a database? Check out a cool new app for Mac OS 10.4 called CoverFlow. It searches your hard drive's music collection, fetches the cover art, and presents your music collection in a lovely, graceful 3D interface. Double-click a CD to launch it in iTunes. Here's the story of CoverFlow.

This is just the kind of simplicity and function I want when Apple figures out how to converge iLife into the living room environment. Speaking of -- MacWorld is right around the corner. What will Steve Jobs unveil? Here's a look behind the magic curtain of Jobs' MacWorld shows, written by former Apple employee Mike Evangelist (no relation).

Posted by colsen at 04:43 PM | Comments (1)

January 04, 2006

Dual Screens

I'm officially addicted to having 2 displays on my computer. I have a laptop and now have additional screens at both home and office. It allows me to spend less time managing windows or switching between windows. It also helps to partition my thinking, sort of like having one drawer for your pens and another for your paper.

Like a lot of us these days, I live and work on the net. I have hobbies, friends, work, recreation -- all on my little PowerBook. When you live here like we do, you may as well have a big house, as in pixels, and lots of 'em.

Posted by Michael at 08:41 PM | Comments (3)